A Model of De-identification: 'Türkiyeli' Fridays

Daniel Defoe (1660-1731) was an intriguing figure who fit a wide variety of professions into his life, including trade, journalism, civil service, espionage, and writing. However, he owes his enduring fame to his novel Robinson Crusoe (1719).

The novel's protagonist, Robinson, is a character who coincides with the period when the United Kingdom began its transformation into an imperial power upon which the sun never sets. Even those who have not read the novel have heard of Robinson, who survived a shipwreck in the ocean, and the deserted island where he took refuge. Those who have read the novel know in detail how the Western white man brought wild nature to its knees, the years spent on the deserted island, his loyal slave Friday, and his successes in agriculture and animal husbandry.

Robinson's voyage to Africa, which ended in an accident and was undertaken to bring back slaves to work on his plantation in South America, is skipped over as an insignificant detail. At the time the novel was written, agricultural production in North and South America relied heavily on the manual labor of Black slaves. The highly profitable slave trade, which was under the monopoly of Portuguese and Spanish merchants, had also caught Robinson's interest. Let us set aside the details of the adventure that ended on a deserted island in the ocean—an adventure he embarked upon to procure slaves without paying commissions to merchants—and get to the essence of the matter.

Robinson is the Western white man who overcomes all difficulties on the deserted island he lands on. He will dominate nature, sow and reap, benefit from the meat and milk of the animals he domesticates, and become the master of the island. It is not for nothing that they say, "As a man sleeps with a dream, so he wakes with that dream." Robinson will prevent the "evil" Black men who land on his island in a canoe from executing another Black man and will save him. The "good" Black man, Friday, whom he names after the day he was saved, will become attached to his Master with absolute slave-like loyalty. Robinson is extremely pleased with Friday's servitude, and Friday is extremely pleased to be in the service of his master.

The two people on the deserted island reflect two separate identities. Robinson symbolizes the Western White Master, and Friday symbolizes the people of the colonial geography. All the seas and lands of the world, including territories yet to be discovered, are the property of the white man. Colonial peoples have only one option to become the "good" Black man who earns the appreciation of the Western White Master: absolute, worshipful loyalty to the master and laying all natural riches at his feet!

If only the symbols of Robinson and Friday had remained merely characters in an adventure novel. But the fact that Robinson and Friday identities continue to exist in flesh and blood is the bitter reality of the world we live in. Today's Robinsons and Fridays are not on deserted islands far from the world, but in plazas, banks, financial institutions, universities, the press, parliaments, the business and political world—in short, everywhere in the world and in every institution.

It is time to bring the conversation to our own "Fridays," whose labels have changed from yesterday to today, but whose essence remains the same. In the last century, the "Fridays" who used names like the Society of the Friends of England, the Society for the Elevation of Kurdistan, the Society for the Elevation of Islam, and the Freedom and Accord Party now prefer the adjective "Türkiyeli" (of Turkey).

It must be known that the discourse of "Türkiyelilik" (being of Turkey) instead of "Turkish" is not a periodic fantasy of our funded "Fridays," but a field application of the program whispered into Robinson's ears to cleanse Turkey of the Turkish.

It should not be overlooked that denying the national identity and sanctifying the identity-less state proposed by the Master is a mobilization order given to our wretched "Fridays."